Maybe I'd find the charm if I sat through a whole episode or two. As it stands, the five minutes I watched left me unimpressed.

Of course I can just turn my head in any direction on a given day and see plenty of camo, overalls, and shaggy beards; I imagine the particular spectacle of DD doesn't hold the novelty for me that it would for more urbanized folks.

I was never an avid follower of the show, but I admired duck dad (Phil?) early on because he stood his ground and insisted he be allowed to say a prayer over dinner at the end of the show. He said it was the principal, not the money and he'd walk if the producers didn't allow him to express his heartfelt feelings. I respected him for standing up for what he believed in.
I'm not a church type at all and subscribe to no particular dogma but I respect people who truly have the courage of their convictions, and I thought duck pop was that kind of guy.
Enter season two and the show has become wildly popular and duck pop is leading the family in a breath holding, foot stomping tirade, threatening to walk. Not over principal, but over money. They are already millionaires, and their business has received billions in free advertising, AND they are getting their way in terms of content but in spite of all these positives, duck pop is now just another TV weenie threating to walk if he doesn't get his way.
Sad how fame can turn a self made, principled individual into just another shallow talking head who has allowed a little attention to destroy all the principals he spent a lifetime acquiring.

Sad how fame can turn a self made, principled individual into just another shallow talking head who has allowed a little attention to destroy all the principals he spent a lifetime acquiring.

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It is sad.

I try not to follow the personal lives and doings of actors, musicians, boxers, etc.
If I did, I would wind up avoiding their performance altogether. There's little enough
good stuff as it is.

Duck Dynasty is the only "reality" show I watch. Move back far enough away to see
the film crew, and there is nothing real about any of the reality shows. I watch it because
there are actually people like that in the world. So in that sense, they are real. I would
take them as neighbors any day.

I was never an avid follower of the show, but I admired duck dad (Phil?) early on because he stood his ground and insisted he be allowed to say a prayer over dinner at the end of the show. He said it was the principal, not the money and he'd walk if the producers didn't allow him to express his heartfelt feelings. I respected him for standing up for what he believed in.

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Maybe the problem is with me being too cynical or realistic or whatever, but when I see something like that I assume from the get-go that the initial "sincerity of principle" was just an act designed to create a brand. Even if it wasn't, the willingness of a person to turn that sincerity into an entertainment spectacle in the first place cheapens the heck out of it. Would I let people film my sincere thoughts for a lot of money? Sure, but I'm a whore and so are those people.

In my mind, there's no way the producers said he couldn't do it, they came up with the idea and explicitly told him "pretend like we wouldn't let you do it and then do it anyway" and their actor complied as was his job, thus securing the market they spent months researching and designing his scripted performance around. I'm not aiming that directly at DD because I haven't watched enough of it to create a specific analysis; it's just every reality TV show ever.

edit* I used "to" in place of "too" and really felt the need to correct it.